Lancelot Andrewes: Selected Sermons and Lectures

Description

This is the first annotated critical edition of works of Lancelot Andrewes (1555-1626), a writer recognized by literary critics, historians, and theologians as one of the most important figures in Elizabethan and Jacobean England. Peter McCullough, a leading expert on religious writing in the early modern period, presents fourteen complete sermons and lectures preached by Andrewes across the whole range of his adult career, from Cambridge in the 1580s to the court of James I and VI in the 1620s. Through a radical reassessment of Andrewes's life, influence, and surviving texts, the editor presents Andrewes as his contemporaries saw, heard, and read him, and as scholars are increasingly recognizing him: one of the most subtle, yet radical critics of mainstream Elizabethan Protestantism, and a literary artist of the highest order. The centuries-old influence of William Laud's authorized edition of Andrewes (1629) is here complicated and contextualized by the full use for the first time of the whole range of Andrewes's works printed before and after his lifetime, as well as manuscript sources.
The edition also showcases the aesthetic brilliance of Andrewes's remarkable prose, and suggests new ways for scholars to carry forward the modern literary appreciation of Andrewes famously begun by T. S. Eliot. A full introductory essay sets study of Andrewes on a new footing by placing his works in the context of his life and career, surveying the history of responses to his writings, and summarizing the history of the transmission of his texts. The texts here are edited to high modern critical standards. The exhaustive commentary sets each selection in its historical context, documents Andrewes's myriad sources, glosses important and unfamiliar words and allusions, and translates his frequent quotations from the ancient Biblical languages.

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About Author

Since completing his PhD at Princeton, Peter McCullough has held positions at Princeton University and Trinity College, Oxford. He is currently Fellow and Tutor at Lincoln College and a Lecturer in the Faculty of English at the University of Oxford.

Contents

Introduction ; Chronology ; I. Two most excellent praiers, which the preacher used before his exercises ; II. from The Pattern of Catechistical Doctrine ; 1. Of the Interpretation of Scriptures ; 2. Of Prayer and Thanksgiving ; 3. Of Outward Reverence in Gods Worship ; 4. The Sabbath not Wholly Ceremonial ; 5. Of Places of Public Worship ; III. A Sermon Preached at Saint Maries Hospital, on the X. of April, Being Wednesday in Easter- Weeke, A.D. MDLXXXVIII ; IV. Sacrilege a Snare. A Sermon Preached Ad Clerum, In the University of Cambridg ; V. A Lecture on Genesis 2.18 (the Creation of Eve) delivered at St Paul's, 18 October 1591 ; VI. A Sermon Preached before Queene Elizabeth, at Hampton Court, on Wednesday, being the VI. of March, A.D. MDXCIIII. ; VII. A Sermon Preached at the Court, on the XXV. of March, A.D. MDXCVII. being Good-Friday. ; VIII. A Sermon on Isaiah 6.6-7, Preached at St Giles Cripplegate, 1 October 1598 ; IX. A Sermon Preached before the King's Majestie, at White-Hall, on the V. of November. A.D. MDCVI ; X. A Sermon Preached before the Kings Majestie at Whitehall, on Christmas Day. Anno 1609 ; XI. A Sermon Preached before His Majestie, on Sunday the Fifth of August last, at Holdenbie ... 1610 ; XII. A Sermon Preached before the King's Majestie at Greenwich on the XXIV. of May, A.D. MDCXVIII. being Whit-Sunday ; XIII. A Sermon Preached at White-Hall, on Easter Day the 16. of April. 1620 ; Appendix 1: A Sermon Preached at the Spittle by Master Andrewes ... April. 10. 1588 ; Appendix 2: Table of Correspondence: Sermon at St Mary's Hospital Texts